All the Time in the World
by Cardio Necrosis
Summary: Dean told himself that he hadn't ever had the time to tell Cas how he felt but it was a lie; there had been more than enough chances for him to surge forward and kiss him; to clap him on the back and tell him how he felt. There had been more than enough time, and more than enough reason to believe Cas reciprocated.


**NOTE:** Much thanks to theletterv for being an all around awesome guy and looking through this fic!

All the Time in the World

Velvety black stretched above him endlessly; a moonless night in the country, so the stars were shining brighter than what Dean usually saw. He lay on the hood of the Impala, in a field not too far from the motel, his arm pressed against Cas'. The fabric of the trench coat was rough against Dean's bare arm; it was warm enough to wear short sleeves and he wondered, not for the first time, if Cas felt temperature the way humans did because even if it was nearing midnight, it was still too warm for a coat in his opinion.

"Sam will worry if he wakes to find you gone, Dean."

"No he won't." Dean didn't have any reservations about leaving in the middle of the night and Sam knew that. He was a phone call away and they had code words he could send through text to let him know he was all right (or not, if that were the case).

Cas didn't press the issue, so Dean glanced at him; Cas lay there stiffly, staring with wide eyes at the sky, lips pursed.

He rolled his eyes. "Dude don't worry about it, really. If he worries he'll send me a text. No biggie."

Cas visibly relaxed, so Dean looked back to the stars. "Do you often do this?"

Dean shrugged. "Dunno. Sometimes, I guess."

"Why?"

Although his deep, somewhat monotonous voice could've been mistaken as being condescending or uninterested, Dean knew him well enough to know it was a genuine question. He tore his gaze from the sky to look at Cas; his wide, blue eyes and raised eyebrows. His childlike expression made Dean chuckle. Cas frowned at his reaction so Dean laughed, mouth turning upward into a smile so hard it hurt his cheeks.

"I'm missing something amusing."

"No, no Cas, you're not, it's nothin'." Biting back his chuckles, but unable to stop grinning, he shook his head.

Cas simply furrowed his brows and frowned slightly, eyes still studiously focused on Dean.

With the way Cas stared him, Dean couldn't stop the warmth flooding his chest and stomach, so he faced the starry black again. "But uh. I don't know why. I was never into astronomy like Sam was. He took a class and everything. He wanted to be an astronaut." Cas' hand was beside his, so close the sides of their pinkies were touching. He knew he should pull away but he couldn't. Seeking touches from him, even innocent ones, felt like stealing something precious. Cas didn't know what Dean was doing and even if he were aware of the touching, he wouldn't understand the implication anyway.

Still, he didn't move his hand.

"When I was little," he continued, after a silence longer than necessary, albeit a comfortable one, "I thought stars were angels, you know? Mom always said angels were watching me. Of course then I realized what a dumbass I was for thinkin' that crap, so."

Cas' hand slid over Dean's; warm and solid and there.

Heart pattering behind his sternum, he cleared his throat so that he could speak, but he remained quiet. Stars twinkled above him and he let the silence swell so all he could hear was the warm breeze rustle the leaves and tall grass surrounding them.

"It is nice," Cas stated quietly.

Dean nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah. It's nice to have alone time, I guess."

Cas slid his hand away from Dean's and began to sit. "I shall leave you to your thoughts."

Dean grabbed Cas' arm, some kind of plea on the tip of his tongue. Half-sitting, Cas twisted so that he could look down at him. Although Dean's eyes had adjusted, he couldn't see much of Cas' face; he was mostly a silhouette with some facial features he could barely see; when they'd been right next to each other, he could make out a hint of blue in his eyes, but now he couldn't. He didn't know if Cas was staring at him, half-lidded and brows furrowed, or with a soft smile and wide eyes. His arm muscles beneath Dean's grip were tight and his posture was rigid, as if ready to spring away at any moment, so he figured he was going to need to be more expressive than just grabbing his arm.

"I can have alone time with you here," he murmured, looking at the hood of the car and out into the night sky-anywhere but at Cas. Even if Dean couldn't see, that didn't mean Cas couldn't.

Cas slowly lowered himself back to the hood. "I appreciate you sharing your meditation ritual with me, Dean." Back against the windshield and shoulders pressed together, Cas slid his hand into Dean's.

Dean's heart tripped over itself somehow and his breath caught in his throat for one terrifying second. "You make it sound like I'm some sort of hippie," he blurted because his cheeks were burning and god, _Cas was holding his hand._ He probably didn't even get it. That was what Dean told himself, and he really didn't know why he held onto the thought that Cas didn't understand what touching and holding hands and staring at stars together meant, because if he did know and he let it happen then maybe Cas felt the same.

Hoping had gotten Dean nowhere in life, so he refused to let himself make allowances now.

He wondered how they'd gotten here. How they had come from Cas staring quizzically at him with sparks bursting all around them to popping into the passenger's seat while Dean drove around town with music blasting to check on him, yet staying to talk about completely pointless crap until Dean finally parked in a field on the way back to the motel, hopped on the hood, and told Cas to join him.

"It is natural to need time alone to ponder. I wouldn't label you so derogatorily."

He laughed and the tightness in his chest loosened. "Right. Of course not." If he leaned a bit more against Cas, well, then it was because he was getting a little tired, nothing more. "Bit of a buzz kill when you find out that they're not angels though, let me tell you."

"Why?"

"Well maybe not for _you,__"_he snorted, bumping Cas with his shoulder. "I dunno, Cas. It was nice thinkin' I could look up and see all the angels watching me, like Mom said. But then I gave up believin' in that." He chuckled once, but it was humourlessly. "Kinda weird, huh? Few years ago, all of this God and angels crap? It wasn't my thing. Now I'm sittin' here looking at stars with an angel."

"We were."

He turned his head, the windshield cool against his cheek as he looked at Cas' dark profile. "Huh?"

"Watching you."

His vision swam suddenly and burned; he refused to let the wetness to slide down his cheek so he clenched his jaw and focused on anything but that; focused on how a rock replaced his heart and throat closed up. Of course they had been; after all, he was Dean Winchester, meant to break the first seal and be a vessel for an archangel and even if that hadn't happened, it was supposed to, and it was the only reason he'd ever mattered to Heaven and had been pulled from the Pit in the first place. Yet it mattered to him; mattered that they-no, _Cas-_had been watching.

Cas turned his head so their eyes met. "Does that make you uncomfortable?"

Dean didn't trust himself to speak so he shook his head.

Even in the darkness, he could see Cas' lips turn up slightly in a small smile. He squeezed Dean's hand. "I love you, Dean."

A punch straight to the chest or gut or both and Dean stopped breathing. He froze, mouth half-open and words or a laugh or a scoff caught in his throat. For what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to a few seconds, they didn't move; just stared at each other, Dean having a slight panic attack, caught between jerking away and pulling Cas closer; kissing him or hopping off the car.

Cas turned away, staring up at the sky, hand still entangled in Dean's, and soft smile still on his face. "I do rather enjoy looking at the stars with you. I find it enjoyable."

Dean managed to swallow the lump in his throat and let out a shaky breath. "Yeah? Well good." Neck aching from the angle he'd been twisting his neck to look at Cas, it felt nice to stare upward.

"How long does one do this?"

Still jittery, Dean managed to smile. "We have all the time in the world, Cas."

It was another ten minutes of blissful silence before Dean got a text from Sam asking if he was okay. He had to pull his hand free of Cas' to reply, and by the time he'd hit send, Cas had disappeared with the soft fluttering of feathers.

* * *

Blood. So much blood, and everywhere.

"Cas!" he shouted, for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past four seconds but that couldn't be right. None of it could be right because Cas couldn't be on his knees, trying to stagger back to his feet and falling down again. Dean ignored the pain in his side, the warm wetness soaking his shirt and sticking to his side, and grabbed Cas, holding him so that he was upright, on his knees. "Whoa, Cas, c'mon, c'mon."

Lights flashed and popped in front of his eyes and the soft, slightly dewy grass of early morning wasn't nearly as soft slamming into his face as it was when lying down cloud gazing with Cas on one side and Sam on the other. The throbbing in his cheek clued him in on the fact something had punched or kicked him; he rolled to his back, pain tearing through his side. He yelled in pain, wrenched from his throat as he clapped his stab wound to see the shifter above him, screeching with its knife raised above its head.

Only for it to freeze, gape at Dean as if he'd somehow betrayed it, and fall on its side with Cas behind it, clutching a bloody knife, red stained trench coat and white shirt underneath that blooming with crimson.

Gasping, Dean pulled himself to his knees just as Cas fell to his. "Not a goddamned shifter, ya hear? Do you hear me?"

Cas laughed oddly and stared at Dean when he clapped his hand on his shoulder; the hand he'd been holding his wound with, slapping a red handprint onto the shoulder of his trench coat. "I thought it was you," he chuckled with his face twisted into a grimace he'd never seen on Cas before; hadn't thought Cas was capable of making. "My human senses are somewhat pathetic, aren't they?"

Dean clutched onto him; held his face, smearing his own blood over Cas' already marred cheeks. "Don't blame yourself, all right? Those bastards are tricky, okay? C'mon, we just gotta-Sam's waitin' for us at the motel, don't want to worry him, do you? C'mon."

It hurt to breathe and coppery, thick something stuck in his throat when he tried to; he didn't have a bloody nose or a split lip so there wasn't any reason for it. Fear shot straight to his gut; twisted and spun until bile threatened to rise and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"Dean-"

"No, it's fine, we're fine, we just gotta-" He tried to pull them both to a standing position, but the extra weight Cas provided and the white-hot fire of pain that ripped through his side stopped him from going too far. He slapped one hand to the ground and doubled over, sucking in breath after breath, vision swimming. "No, goddammit. Not a fucking shifter do you hear me?!" he shouted to the ground, because dammit, he was _better_ than that.

"Dean."

Dean glanced at Cas; he'd been supporting the former-angel so much that when he'd fallen, Cas had as well. He lay on his side, face tilted so he could stare at Dean; always staring. He wouldn't ever stop staring at Dean; not when at the diner while he explained to him why humans didn't need to just eat, but eat things that were delicious and for more than just sustenance, and not now.

Dean moved so that he was leaning over Cas, eyes burning and cheeks wet. Although Cas was grinning, teeth showing, his eyes were red and wet and swimming in the light of dawn. He reached up and held Dean's face; his hand was cold, not because of the beer bottle he'd been clutching at a bar, attempting (and failing) to flirt with a cute blonde that had been eyeing him at Dean's insistence, but because the blood on his hand had cooled in the breeze.

"It's okay, Dean. Do not mourn me." Despite his words, his voice broke. His thumb grazed Dean's lip. "I will wait for you there."

"No, don't say that, c'mon, it's nothing. We just gotta get stitched up. We have time."

"We have all the time in the world."

His hand fell to the grass and Dean shouted; grabbed his stupid shoulders and shook him because it wasn't _funny._ How _dare_ he go and die like that, the stupid child, because he used to be an angel and former angels didn't die because of stupid fucking shifters. He held him to his body, soaking chest to soaking chest, and sobbed; wailed and swore at him for being so selfish; how dare he leave him like this, because they had so much they were supposed to do.

He told himself that he hadn't ever had the time to tell Cas how he felt but it was a lie; there had been more than enough chances for him to surge forward and kiss him; to clap him on the back and tell him how he felt. There had been more than enough time, and more than enough reason to believe Cas reciprocated, and he hadn't; he hadn't, and now . . .

Blood-soaked hands fished in his pocket for his cell; he was on his back, staring at steely grey sky, shivering in the cold morning air, cursing God and shifters and Cas, as his fingers slipped over the numbers.

"You're going to have to make it quick Dean, I'm almost out of minutes."

Despite the situation, Dean laughed. "You and me both, Sasquatch."

* * *

"I had been hoping to wait longer, Dean." Damn him, the bastard even had the indecency to be disappointed; frowning, chin tilted downward and eyes narrowed, as if Dean had disobeyed him and forgotten to do his chores.

"Dude, my side was gashed open. You could practically see my liver."

"I apologise for failing to notice."

He couldn't tell if he was being serious, so he snorted. "Well you had your own mortality to deal with." He gestured over to the impala that stood parked in a field, little Sammy calling them over excitedly, never-ending stream of fireworks streaking across the black sky, the smell of wheat almost overpowering and the summer breeze gentle against his skin.

"Did you get a hold of Sam?"

Dean stared at his little brother; the one that wasn't really his brother, just a memory, but he smiled anyway. "Yeah."

Cas nodded once; Dean didn't want to talk about it, and luckily Cas either knew he wouldn't or didn't think much else needed to be said on the subject.

Sam's laughter wasn't quite loud enough to cover the pops and fizzes and squeals of the fireworks, but it wasn't an unpleasant mixture of sounds, and Dean stuffed his hands in his pockets as Sam frantically waved them over. "Dean! Cas! Come on! We're gonna run out soon and Cas hasn't even lit one!"

Dean shook his head and pinched his lips together to hide the fact he was smiling, but he couldn't. Cas stared at him, in the way he always did, and that was all it took for him to walk over, hold his face, and press a kiss to his mouth. Cas hummed and tilted his head, fingers splayed across Dean's cheek, and he smiled against his lips.

"Gross guys! Cut it out!"

Dean pulled away to laugh, and Cas slid his hand into Dean's. "Okay, okay, we're coming, jeez." He shared a smile with Cas before they walked, hand in hand, to meet Sam.

"About time," Sam bitched, handing Cas the lighter.

Dean ruffled his comically-short brother's hair. "Quit whining, Sammy. We've got all the time in the world."

And for once, they really did.


End file.
